OK, I think I am addicted to the Splitcoast Challenges! I had so much fun stamping Sunday, that I had to do it again yesterday. Monday’s Challenge was “try a new Technique” (TLC150). The technique was to make a photo wallet.

This is the closed photo wallet. I used the NEW ” Embrace Life” stamp set. If you take a look on page 84 in the Spring-Summer Collection, the project pictured in the top left was the inspiration for my color combination. The colors used are River Rock, Ruby Red, Groovy Guava, and Very Vanilla. For the background stamping on the wallet and belly band, I used Versamark. The flower was stamped with Ruby Red ink on Groovy Guava card stock. I also used the VersaMarker to darken the edges of the flower petals. The Very Vanilla layer you see on the band around the wallet, was scalloped using the corner rounder punch. I think I may have to make a tutorial for you on how to do that! The band holds the wallet closed. Here are a few pictures of the inside of the wallet:

When you open the wallet there is a cover over each picture. The popped up flowers are stamped with Ruby Red on Very Vanilla and attached with dimensionals. Again, I colored the edges of each flower petal. This time I watercolored with Groovy Guava and a blender pen. Ribbons used are Double-Stitched Grosgrain, River Rock and Groovy Guava.

Here is the fully opened photo wallet! There is a section for journaling next to each picture. You may not be able to see it, but under the journaling the images are stamped with River Rock. Although I wanted to stamp on the journal blocks, I did not want the image to compete with my journaling. After I inked up the stamp in River Rock, I stamped off once on a scrap piece of paper, then I stamped the image on the journal block. This gave me the exact effect I was looking for!

I cannot tell you how much I loved to make this project! I think this is going to be my new favorite gift to give in 2008. As soon as you have some time, I encourage you to try this. It looks a lot harder than it is. Photo wallets are a lot of fun to make and they are a great gift for anyone for any occasion. Here is a great tutorial for photo wallets. You can use any color combo and stamp set you choose.

How would you like to be a guest blogger? Send me pictures of your photo wallet and I’ll post the pictures on my blog!!

Happy Stamping!

I finally made some time to play with the stamp sets that I cut and mounted the other day. So, I decided to try a Splitcoaststampers challenge for fun. Splitcoaststampers is a website that I am totally addicted to. I go there for new project ideas and inspiration.  The site is made up of galleries, forums, and resources all related to stamping. You really should check it out! If you scroll down on their home page, you will find a list for Weekly Challenges. Sunday’s challenge is a Featured Stamper Challenge (fs48). The featured stamper for this week is Nancy Riley (stampinat6213). I picked this card from her gallery to CASE. Here is my version:

I haven’t received my Valentine Bundle yet so my card is stamped with a new Level 3 Hostess set from the Spring-Summer Collection called “Time Well Spent“. This set was sent to every demonstrator for FREE, as a thank you, from Shelli Gardner (CEO and Co founder of Stampin’ Up!). And you can have it too, just contact me to schedule a workshop!

For the base of the card I layered Rose Red Prints DSP over Certainly Celery DSP and tied Pink Taffeta Ribbon around both. This was adhered to a Whisper White Card Base.

The main images are stamped with Black StazON and colored using Certainly Celery, Rose Red, and Pretty in Pink Stampin’ Write Markers. The butterfly is stamped once and colored, then stamped again on scrap paper and cut out (I cut off the antennae, because they are too difficult to trim around). The cut out butterfly is layered over the stamped butterfly using SNAIL and dimensionals. It looks like it is flying off the paper! The flight path is drawn with a black marker. All of the above were matted onto Rose Red Card stock.

The medallion in the corner is a flower stamped on Certainly Celery, cut out, and layered on a 1″ Whisper White circle and a 1 1/4″ Pretty in  Pink circle. You may not be able to see it in the picture but I used the VersaMarker to outline the edges of each flower petal (this is a quick and easy way to add dimension to a stamped image). Finally, the Crop-a-Dile made it so easy to add the Rose Red eyelet to the center. The medallion was adhered to the main images and both were added to the card using dimensionals.

I hope you enjoyed my first Challenge card! I hope to try another one soon! Don’t forget, if you would like to have the “Time Well Spent” stamp set, contact me to schedule a workshop or catalog party. This set is available for the next 6 months and then it is gone forever!

Happy Stamping!

Yes, I do realize that Christmas is over, but I really wanted to share this project with you. This year I wanted to create an advent calendar with my girls, Kaitlin and Emma, but all of the calendars that I was looking at for inspiration were too difficult for them. Kaitlin is 6 and Emma just turned 5. They both love to stamp with me, so this was a great opportunity to spend some creative time with them this Christmas. I also wanted to stay away from treats and use activities that the family could do together each day instead. So here is what I came up with:

I started a little late on this project so we had a calendar for the 12th through the 24th, a total of 13 days. This ended up the perfect size for our mantel from end to end. I took a package of Whisper White Mini Envelopes and gave Emma 6 and Kaitlin 7. As you can see in the picture to the left, each envelope is hung up using mini clothespins and twine (both purchased from the Walmart craft department). Each envelope holds a piece of paper with the family activity of the day. Every day the kids would look to see what we were all going to do together. They loved it!

Originally I was going to punch a hole in the corner of each envelope and string them onto the twine, but I realized that this would make it difficult for the kids to take the messages out of the envelopes each day and they would probably get ripped. So, that is when I thought of the Clothespins. They were functional and really really cute!

I tried to keep this project as simple as possible so the girls could be as independent as possible. We used two stamp sets: Holiday Tag Team and Short Order Numbers. Holiday Tag Team just retired and it was perfect for the girls to use with a lot of stamps to choose from. For ink we used Real Red and Glorious Green Classic Stamp Pads along with their Stampin’ Kids Markers. That’s right I showed them how to use the markers to color the images in multiple colors. They thought that was the coolest thing ever, and I thought they did an amazing job!! Emma stamped the 22nd envelope all by herself, how cool is that!

This is Emma’s favorite just because she likes candy canes (Emma is our junk food junkie)! This is my favorite because I think the green stripes between the red came out perfect! Kaitlin stamped the candy cane. I did help her alittle. She wanted to know how to color it two different colors and she picked red and green. I told her to ink up the stamp in the Real Red stamp pad and then color the stripes with the green marker from their Stampin’ Kids Marker Set. She did an amazing job!

This envelope is Kaitlin’s favorite. She likes how the presents are all different colors and she stamped it over and over to make a border.

Here are some of the activities we added to our envelopes:

• Hot Cocoa with all the fixings
• Drive around to look for Christmas lights
• Watch a Christmas Movie and eat popcorn
• Bake Christmas Cookies
• Dance to crazy music
• Paint another family members toenails

You can make up any activities that work for your family. We had to look at the calendar when planning activities, since we have such a crazy schedule. Some activities could only be completed on certain days.

This is definitely a great activity to do with young children. Keep the supplies limited and let them create on their own with you to guide them. I think this will be a new tradition in our family. I would like to make one every year and keep them in a large folder, so they can see the difference from year to year. I hope you liked this project and you get to share this with someone next year.

Last night I cut and mounted several new stamp sets that I have been dying to play with so hopefully I will be able to post some more recent pictures tomorrow!

Happy Stamping!